


Love Letters

by wirewrappedlily



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: Immortal Husbands, Love Letters, M/M, mostly tooth-rotting fluff, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:53:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23957983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wirewrappedlily/pseuds/wirewrappedlily
Summary: On reflection, Magnus Bane would come to realize that, perhaps, bringing Alexander Lightwood to a museum would have left the door open for much mockery in any case. Alec did not have to even voice the thought that Magnus was older than some of the items on display, after all, but Alec had been asking him about his personal history more and more, and Magnus wanted to see if he could give a little more context to the stories he was telling by having them surrounded by objects from that time.What Magnus did not realize was that there had been a push recently, to pull some of the unseen pieces of work from the bowels of the Louvre and display them to the world at last.Pieces which included a letter written to Magnus from Ragnor which had gone over the scandal that Magnus had left in his wake in Greece in 1726, and a series of love letters that Magnus had had the good sense not to actually sign, but whose handwriting had been immediately identified as his by his darling Nephilim.
Relationships: Magnus Bane & Isabelle Lightwood, Magnus Bane & Jace Wayland, Magnus Bane & Maryse Lightwood (mentioned), Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 8
Kudos: 231





	Love Letters

On reflection, Magnus Bane would come to realize that, perhaps, bringing Alexander Lightwood to a museum would have left the door open for much mockery in any case. Alec did not have to even voice the thought that Magnus was older than some of the items on display, after all, but Alec had been asking him about his personal history more and more, and Magnus wanted to see if he could give a little more context to the stories he was telling by having them surrounded by objects from that time. 

What Magnus did not realize was that there had been a push recently, to pull some of the unseen pieces of work from the bowels of the Louvre and display them to the world at last. 

Pieces which included a letter written to Magnus from Ragnor which had gone over the scandal that Magnus had left in his wake in Greece in 1726, and a series of love letters that Magnus had had the good sense not to actually sign, but whose handwriting had been immediately identified as his by his darling Nephilim. 

Magnus had nearly had a coronary upon catching sight of them, and in the few seconds that it took for Magnus to seriously debate with himself the legality of the museum having property which was, technically, both his and not, Alec had disappeared. 

The panic that shot through Magnus was immense; Alec and he had rather buried the issue of the number of Magnus's exes, but they hadn't really dealt with it far enough that Magnus could stop himself from immediately panicking that Alec _seeing_ the collection of love letters would be enough to bring that particular problem back from the dead. 

Nearly running into the next hall, Magnus almost skidded on the floor as he immediately stopped, the sight of Alec looking up at a painting only giving him about a half-second's reprieve from the anxiety before he realized just _what the painting depicted_.

It was rather akin to Magnus's "throne" in Pandemonium, though Magnus hated to call it that. There were beautiful men and women draped around the figure who was clearly central to the scene. The figure who was, undeniably, Magnus himself. Naked as the day he was born, just as they all were. It was a depiction of vice and lust that could almost, had it not been rendered so clearly sought after, as a depiction of Hell. 

Magnus did not remember actually posing for or commissioning this portrait--and, on second thought, he may not have commissioned it, because he had been very careful to collect every portrait that he had ever had made. But, as the letter from Ragnor in the other hall could attest, he had spent more time than was prudent drunk enough to not necessarily remember posing as king in that pile of hedonism. 

Magnus approached Alec in front of the portrait feeling rather like he was walking towards a landmine and he wasn't sure whether or not it would come to explode. 

Alec was frowning deeply, and Magnus felt another twist of awful panic go through him, but knew he couldn't avoid this. 

"Your dick is bigger than that." Alec scoffed at the portrait when Magnus drew close enough that Alec knew it was him without looking, and Magnus froze dead, eyes going wide, as he seriously considered if he'd ever heard of another warlock dying of coronary. 

"I'm sorry, _what_?" Magnus choked out quietly. 

"Your dick is bigger than that." Alec repeated, pointing to the painting before he turned his head to cast a sweeping glance over Magnus, the smirk pulling at his mouth going high on the list of things Magnus did not think he could handle just then. "Was it cold when you were posing, or--" 

Alec cut off, choking on his laugh as Magnus elbowed him in the gut. 

"You're blushing. I need to get a picture for Izzy or she won't believe me." Alec continued to giggle, fumbling for his phone. "Stand there so I can get you with the painting in all its glory." 

Magnus flipped him off, and the click of the phone camera sounded before Magnus could turn-tail and run from Alec actually getting the photograph. "You..." 

Alec grinned, pulling Magnus in by a belt loop and kissing his cheek. "So, you wrote a series of love letters to someone with the initial 'V', and posed for at least one...I won't say tasteful, but I will say disappointingly disproportionate portrait--" Alec laughed harder when Magnus pinched his side. "Should I be jealous that I don't get any love letters?" 

Alec wrapped both arms around Magnus, the soft and teasing lilt to his voice effectively melting Magnus into him. "No." 

"Don't pout, Magnus." Alec coaxed, "I...I made my peace with the fact that you have a past. I will admit, I don't really like _seeing_ it, but Izzy told me that if I was going to fall for an immortal, I'd have to get over the part of me that really wishes I'd be your only just as much as you'll always be mine." 

Magnus's breath caught, and he looked at Alec, cupping his cheek and kissing him gently. Magnus smirked as they parted, "We should get out of here before security finds us. I'd hate to get arrested for touching one of the masterpieces, after all." 

~

The golden envelope tucked behind Magnus's bottle of cologne a week later was enough of an oddity that it managed to catch Magnus's attention even without the prior consumption of coffee. 

Magnus caught sight of himself in the vanity mirror as he went to pick up the envelope, and grinned at the hickey Alec had left just shy of his collarbone; the memory of Alec's arms wrapped around him in their sleep still pleasantly warm on his skin. 

By the slant of light in his windows, Magnus knew that it was more than likely over a hour since Alec had left for work, and the blink between Alec's goodbye kiss and Magnus actually rolling from the bed had almost certainly been more than a blink. 

Flipping the envelope open, Magnus pulled a sheaf of high-quality paper from its embrace and tilted his head. It was not the Institute's letterhead; and it wasn't Magnus's own stock of paper. Which would mean that Alec had gone out and bought paper specifically for this. 

_'In letters, I have noticed the tradition is to open them with either the name, or a pet-name, but for as much as I disagree with the formality of the first, I find I can't find a pet-name that sums up what you are to me. You are more than beloved, held higher than being merely my darling one. To call you my love would be closest, but somehow, it still doesn't fit all that I would like to tell you that you are to me._

_So, I will open by calling you simply mine, Magnus Bane._

_Leaving your arms is the most difficult thing I'm asked to do, and I am asked to do it every morning. It's a torture that never stops, and is only worth suffering for the knowledge that once it's been done, I can return to your arms tonight._

_There is nothing worth more than the chance to come home to you._

_Have a good day, Magnus, and know that tonight cannot ever come fast enough for me._

_Yours,  
A'_

Magnus let out a noise he would only ever admit to himself was a girlish squeak, and in the reflection of his vanity mirror, he now stood with pink-tinged cheeks and ears, a hickey on his collarbone, and a smile. 

~

The next envelope was golden, too, tucked neatly in the drawer of Magnus's rarely-used desk. Magnus could only hope that Alec hadn't left it a long time ago, and taken a lack of acknowledgement to be discouragement. 

_'My Magnus,_

_I will be the first to admit my bias, but I would swear to the Angel himself that there is nothing and no one quite as beautiful as you._

_It's been something that I can barely admit to myself, let alone admit to you, what peace it brings me to watch you work; to get to sit in the presence of your beauty and bask there. I know that it's something you're not comfortable with, most of the time. I understand; I wouldn't like someone watching me work, either. But I have to admit, even if I can't do so to your face, that watching you in your element is the most breathtaking and soothing thing I have ever found._

_When I first saw your magic, Magnus, I thought there was nothing that would be more beautiful than watching you wield it: a true master, a force of nature given human form. But the first time I saw your eyes...well, I was proven very wrong._

_Since I am being honest with things I don't have the courage to tell you, I will also confess that after you had shown me your eyes, I began to worry when you continued to wear the glamour to hide them from me. I've come to hope that it isn't hiding so much as habit, from what Catarina has told me about glamours; but that worry remains._

_There aren't words that I've been able to find, Magnus, to express to you just how awe-inspiring you are in every moment I get to look at you._

_So I have to ask, please, to allow me my slip-ups; and forgive me for being unable and unwilling to tear my eyes away._

_Yours,  
A'_

Magnus swallowed heavily, looking up at the sound of Alec coming into the loft with a soft greeting. "In here." Magnus called back, not bothering to hide that he'd found and had just read the letter, and not bothering to put his glamour back into place; knowing that he had dropped it the moment he'd read of Alec's worries. 

"I..." Alec shifted uncomfortably in the doorway, eyes flicking from the letter in Magnus's hand to his eyes. 

"Come here." Magnus beckoned, the tears on his lashes worrying Alec all the more, he knew. They weren't tears of sadness, nowhere near it, but nor could he say they were happy tears, either. 

Alec came to him easily, and when Magnus reached for a hug, Alec held him as if he'd put himself between Magnus and anything that would come to harm him; to have him sad or scared or hurt. 

"I love you so much, Alexander. And it is habit, I promise you." 

"I didn't write it to have you break the habit, Magnus--" 

"No, I know." Magnus told him, pulling back and whispering a kiss over his lips before he leaned their foreheads together. "But I don't want you to carry that worry, either. You have nothing to worry about, my love." Running his fingers through Alec's tumult of hair, Magnus relaxed into his embrace. "And this...we should talk about it, I think. When I showed Max at his rune ceremony, I told him I only show them to my closest friends, and there's a reason for that. I hide my marks even more than other warlocks hide theirs." 

Alec pulled back slightly more, giving Magnus a look, "Are you telling me that you showed my _brother_ before I got to see them?" 

Magnus snorted at the overwrought offense in Alec's tone, and then squawked when Alec poked him in the side. 

"No, this is an outrage, Magnus Bane! A travesty!" Alec was still holding him close, and Magnus started giggling at the warm look in his eyes and the smile on his mouth even as he derided the unfairness of the state of affairs. "And you only show them to your closest friends--I would hope we'd have been closer than friends by that point!" 

Magnus reached up to curve both hands around Alec's jaw, meeting his eyes with all the decorum he could manage. "Are you done?" 

"Probably not, but you're smiling again, so I'll leave the rest for now." 

~

_'My Magnus,_

_I am writing this to you instead of doing the paperwork I am trapped here to do for the simple reason that if I don't write it, I will be too stuck on the image of your regular over-worked routine for the paperwork to be coherent. Right now, you should be on your first martini still, sliding into the bubble bath (I hope with the eucalyptus-scented foam that leaves you completely relaxed) with some of that slow jazz playing._

_I feel as if I nearly lost you today, and it's all I can do to resist coming home to you this second and climbing into that bath with you._

_There is a lot that I've come to owe you for in the time I've known you, Magnus. More than I could repay in a thousand years._

_But what I can't help but put foremost in the list of what I owe you is the knowledge of just how deeply I adore you. How much it would kill me to see you hurt, as you so nearly were today._

_I plan on doing this paperwork, and making it to you before you emerge from the bath. I want to lay you on those golden sheets, Magnus, and kiss every inch of you to try to chase away the ghost of a possibility that I could have lost you. I want you, whole and lax and happy in my arms. There is nothing I could ever want more than to have you in my arms._

_Please do not ever doubt how badly I need you safe, Magnus._

_Yours in every way,  
A'_

~

Magnus woke up to Alec's lips on his skin, the warm touch of his hands on Magnus's hips sending a shudder through Magnus as those lips brushed down the line of Magnus's shoulder. Magnus moved his arm to try to shift and catch a glimpse of Alec's slow progress across his back, but the crinkle of a golden envelope punched a laugh from his chest instead. 

_'My husband,_

_I never thought I'd find a word for all that you mean to me, but this one does come closest._

_Yours always,  
Your husband'_

Magnus giggled, breath catching as Alec's lips reached a particularly ticklish spot. 

"I like it." Magnus managed, voice still husky from the night before. 

Alec smirked against Magnus's skin, and kept kissing. 

~

It was just too much. 

Magnus had not been home in a day and a half; had spent most of that time in the infirmary, working with Catarina to stabilize Alec as much as they could. 

And now, stumbling through the portal into his home, Magnus caught sight of the table Alec had set in honour of their first anniversary, and his legs simply gave out from under him. 

Alec was still alive, however barely, and it was only Maryse's unyielding ferocity that had finally convinced Magnus to come home and shower and try to rest. Magnus didn't have to mourn him yet, and he tried to cling to that reality as if it would stop the knowledge that there would come a time when he would have to mourn Alec. As if it would in any way hinder the nightmares of what losing Alec would look like. 

Alec had been preparing their night together when the call had come in that there had been some kind of backfire to a younger warlock's potion, and it had caused the man to go, for lack of a better term, feral. 

In the chaos of getting people safely away, Alec had gotten hit with something that was not any kind of spell or curse Magnus had ever heard of--and Magnus only knew this because he and Catarina had spent the last day and a half working through every counter they could think of to try to dispel the fever that wracked Alec and the three other Shadowhunters that had gotten hit. 

Behind him, Magnus heard the door open, and two pairs of hands took his arms and set him back on his feet. 

Isabelle and Jace half-carried him towards the master bedroom, both of them pale and tired as he was, but both of them visibly worried about him. 

"Mom ordered us out once she was done ordering you out." Isabelle murmured as they reached the darkened bedroom. Neither of the siblings turned on the lights, and Magnus was obliquely grateful for it. 

"We figured that you'd need more help taking care of yourself than just banishing you from sitting by his bedside." Jace added. "I'm going to make us some food. You're going to shower and get comfortable." 

"I don't...I don't want to sleep in our bed right now." Magnus admitted. 

"Which is why while you're showering and Jace is getting food, I'll be setting up the guest room. You have a TV in there anyway, so we're all going to try to fall asleep to a movie, okay?" Isabelle asked softly. 

Magnus fell into hugging both of them. Siblinghood was a kind of relationship he couldn't say he'd reached with any of his friends, as close as some of them had come. He knew in the abstract that for a long time, Alec had hidden himself away from his siblings in the desperate attempt to shut down his feelings: the idea that it was better to give himself over to their united cause, to act dutifully for his parents on his siblings' behalves, a cage that he didn't want anyone to be able to see. But Magnus knew that as soon as Alec had taken the walls of that cage from their joints, Alec and his siblings had finally gotten close enough that it wasn't uncommon, sometimes, for Alec and Isabelle to spend nights like the one Isabelle was suggesting; hadn't been uncommon, when Jace wasn't sneaking off to go check up on Clary, for Alec to sit with Jace, usually watching over him in understanding silence until Jace finally fell asleep. 

That Alec's siblings were doing this for him was another mark of how desperately Magnus needed not to lose him now. Magnus loved this family, and while losing Alec didn't mean losing them; Magnus couldn't quite see how he was supposed to handle the pain that seeing them would inflict, either. 

The three of them were largely silent as they gathered back in the spare bedroom. Jace and Isabelle took turns showering and getting changed themselves once Magnus had conjured them some clothes, but when Isabelle came back in, she carried in her fingers a golden envelope. 

"It was...on the table." 

Magnus tried very hard to summon a smile, to force out the tone of voice to make it a joke as he said, "Well, the first anniversary is paper." 

Magnus didn't want to open it, didn't want to read it. But if the worst happened, he would never be able to force himself to; and would carry forever that envelope, with Alec's words caged inside.

_'My husband,_

_I still can't believe what a miracle it is that we have gotten here._

_If anyone had ever asked me as a child, Magnus, I would have told them that happiness like that which you've shown me is impossible. I knew, always, what my fate would be; and this was not it._

_You are the biggest miracle I've ever heard of, but if there were one thing I could ask for further, it would be the countdown I know runs through your mind._

_Which is why I asked Catarina and Tessa to help me, Magnus. Why I took a potion this morning that will give me a chance to share your forever with you--_

Magnus stopped reading, sitting up in a rush and choking on air. Alec had--

Nearly face-planting in his desperation to get out from the nest that Isabelle had built for the three of them, Magnus ran for his apothecary, knowing damn well that he was the only warlock with the necessary ingredient to make that kind of potion. 

"Magnus?!" Jace and Isabelle yelled after him, following. Neither of them managed to move in panic with the training for stealth that they had been raised in; and Magnus could only wonder at why his brain chose that moment to wonder at that fact when he had better things to be thinking of. 

In the specially-made jar that the phoenix herself had given him to contain them, only four of the five feathers she had gifted him with burned. 

Alec had made and had taken a potion to become immortal. Magnus fell heavily on his ass in his apothecary, the sobs wracking through him so violently that he wasn't sure he wasn't about to die under the force of them. 

If Alec could survive the fever, then they could have forever together. 

Isabelle sat beside him, pulling him into her lap and petting through his hair as Jace picked up the jar and replaced it in the safe he'd flung open, then picked up the letter that had half-slid beneath the worktable. 

"Can we read it, Magnus?" Isabelle asked softly, her touches through his hair not stuttering in the least as the siblings shared a look over the weeping warlock. 

Magnus nodded, knowing that he wouldn't be able to read the rest himself. 

Jace took a deep breath, and read aloud for them, 

" _'My husband,_

_I still can't believe what a miracle it is that we have gotten here._

_If anyone had ever asked me as a child, Magnus, I would have told them that happiness like that which you've shown me is impossible. I knew, always, what my fate would be; and this was not it._

_You are the biggest miracle I've ever heard of, but if there were one thing I could ask for further, it would be the countdown I know runs through your mind._

_Which is why I asked Catarina and Tessa to help me, Magnus. Why I took a potion this morning that will give me a chance to share your forever with you. I hope you'll forgive me for doing it without asking you first, but I know that you're afraid of asking me if I want your forever with you._

_I do, Magnus._

_I am, and will always be your loving husband._

_Yours,  
A'_" Jace and Isabelle stopped breathing, and Magnus realized that he had, too, at some point. 

"Did you...Did you not want--?" Jace asked hesitantly. 

"I do...I do want forever with Alec." Magnus gasped out, and Isabelle shushed him gently, pulling him firmly up into her arms. 

"He's going to be okay, Magnus." Isabelle murmured, "I believe that now more than ever." She gently pulled him back so that he could meet her dark eyes and see her quirk a small smile, "He has more to live for now than he has ever had before, and my brother is the most stubborn fucker I've ever met. He'll get back to you, even if he has to hold an angel hostage at the gates of Heaven in order to make it happen." 

~

_'My Alexander,_

_Your mother and I drunkenly decided last night that today is my birthday (no, I still will not do the math to translate the calendars, this is as good as you're getting), so to that end, I've called Underhill to cancel your appointments today and I demand as my birthday present that you do not leave our bed. I've gone to get us breakfast in bed, and arrange for lunch and dinner to be ready to be conjured later today._

_Be naked._

_Yours,  
M'_

Magnus walked into their bedroom to find Alec draped over the bed, the letter he'd left for his husband artfully arranged to act as the classical fig leaf. 

Alec greeted him with bedroom eyes and a grin. 

"Happy birthday to me."

**Author's Note:**

> Indonesia actually switched the calendar they used in 1633 to one that is also not the Gregorian calendar, so Magnus probably has literally no clue what day his birthday actually is anymore, might not even know what year he was born in. And who better than your mother-in-law to help you rectify that? 
> 
> Sorry I got angsty for a minute there, but yes, of fucking course Alec survived. I'm pretty sure that boy would figure out a way to start the zombie apocalypse in order to come back from the dead and go back to Magnus. And Catarina would just be standing there watching the undead roaming the streets with the Unimpressed Mom Look in spades.


End file.
